Wacom Alternative – Huion h610 Pro is Amazing

EDIT: I take this all back. Wacom is king. Unfortunately. Those patents are rock solid. I sadly have now purchased more than 4 Wacoms, and 3 Huions or so.

OLD POST:
I have owned many Wacom tablets.

I own 3 right now, an Intuos Pro Medium, Intuos 4 Wide (wish they kept this dimension), and a Bamboo.

My Pro broke after a month, and while I trust it will be replaced with the warranty, I need a tablet now, and I didn’t want to drop another $350 while I wait.

I finally tried a Wacom alternative, and it is quite frankly amazing. The Huion H610 Pro for $80 or roughly 1/4th the price.

It works out of the box on my Retina MBP with Yosemite (Q1 2015 latest) with no drivers necessary. This is huge. Tablet driver issues even between Wacoms is a pain. Reinstalls, clearing crazy folders via command line, etc.

The only cons is that it requires you plug in the pen (which feels no different to me than a Wacom tablet), but you’re not fumbling with batteries. It’s just another simple USB cord that plugs directly into the battery.

Wacom has a patent on the most effective wireless/powerless pen technology, and is why they have a stronghold on the market and can control prices at will. Going third party means adopting a battery powered pen.. which until now I thought would be a huge bother. It’s not bad at all. The pen is the same size and light.

In general the whole thing is lighter / has slightly lower build quality, but that doesn’t matter to me. My Wacom’s get abused and especially the new, black PRO line gets ugly fast from use.

If you’re looking for a tablet, just get this thing. Buy the Wacom when you can afford it. It’s kind of like buying a nice car vs an economy car. They both do similar things, and both have justifications.

I like to buy top of the line for things I use for work. I will go back to a Wacom when mine is repaired, but this Huion is nothing short of impressive! Give it a shot and let me know what you think.